


Leaving Ashes In Your Wake

by Khrysoprase



Category: Danny Phantom
Genre: Body Horror, Danny/Sam spawn, F/M, Gen, I'm Sorry, Legal Inaccuracies, Medical Inaccuracies, Not Beta Read, someone might die
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-26
Updated: 2019-03-09
Packaged: 2019-11-05 18:31:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 17,485
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17924090
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Khrysoprase/pseuds/Khrysoprase
Summary: Danny's half-ghost status leaves his children afflicted by possibly deadly genetic deformities and his parents stuck with legal charges for their condition. In order to clear his parents' name and have any chance of saving his children's lives, Danny will have to reveal himself to the world - and this time, there's no going back. Reveal fic, no PP.Imported from FF.net because I make poor life choices.





	1. Chapter 1

Gingerly, Maddie opened the door to her grandchildren's bedroom.

The twins slept better when they were together, usually, and this morning was no exception. They were quietly breathing in and out in sync, small bodies curled up together as if huddled for warmth. Checking the thermostat, Maddie frowned and flicked the temperature up, a wave of guilt rolling over her. She'd have to separate them, again, which they hated, and then at least one of them would be awake and huffing at her. But that wasn't the real cause of the guilt that made her stomach twist into knots as she walked over to the crib and carefully picked her grandson up. His grip on his sister's hair took a second to undue before she could get him in her arms properly, carefully slipping out of the bedroom to get him into cooler air.

Radiation from the Ghost Portal had done a number on them both. Lilith needed heat, craved it, would latch onto anyone to stop the shivers that ran through her body. Alan, however, was always running hot, only truly at ease when given cool baths or allowed outside in the crisp spring mornings. He'd let Lilith cling to him until inevitably he woke up crying, uncomfortable in ways he didn't yet have words to verbalize. The twins were hard to look after in that way, constantly keeping their parents awake at all hours, so it was with a heavy heart that Sam and Danny had let Maddie talk them into letting her and Jack take care of the children at night.

Of course, body heat was the least of the twins' problems. There were blackout curtains on their windows for a reason; as Maddie made her way to the living room and sat down with Alan in her arms, he squinted at the morning light on his eyelids. His skin caught the light, a pale white reminiscent of many a ghost in Amity Park, and when his eyes opened, they were a ghastly purple not much darker in hue. He blinked sleepily up at her, making a grabby hand for her hair. Smiling sadly down at him, she tilted her head forward so he could tug at it. Alan was always grabbing something, it seemed. Unlike his sister, his grip was fairly strong. She swallowed back a lump in her throat.

There was no rationalizing this away to herself, especially not in the early hours of the morning. The Ghost Portal's ectoplasmic radiation had done this to both of them, and that was on her. She'd designed it more than Jack had, had pushed for continued attempts at repairs when the project failed, had never thought to keep Danny away from it, had _let Sam be near it_ -

"No," Alan muttered, because that and 'Lil' were his only words at the moment. She pursed her lips as he thwacked his hand against her cheek, squirming. "Mmm." He gestured with his head to the window, wanting to go outside, into the cold that soother him.

She wondered what he would have looked like if she hadn't exposed Danny to the Ghost Portal. If he were unaffected by it, would he have had his mother's eyes? It seemed most likely. Unlike Lilith, whose hair was white and perpetually tangled, his was black; he reminded her of Jack in his own baby pictures, which was a painful thought sometimes. God, he was so _small_ , and Lilith was smaller, both of them growing so slowly it sometimes seemed they would never catch up to other kids their age. How big would he have been if she hadn't insisted on having a lab in her house all those years ago? Would he and Lilith be able to sleep regular hours, in regular heat, like normal twins?

Maddie forced a smile for Alan, for whatever it counted for. The twins' vision tests weren't promising. A lack of pigmentation in their eyes meant they were struggling to see already, but were still far too young for glasses. Still, she tried to make herself look and sound happy around them. Jack did the same, a bit more successfully. They were trying their best, she told herself as she walked over to open the window, balancing Alan in one arm to do so. Instantly, he grinned as the cool air hit him, one hand grabbing for the windowsill. The other clutched her shoulder for balance, and she stared at the long, pale fingers. He and Lilith had long hands like Maddie and her father before her. On any other baby it would have been cute.

Something in her ached just looking at him sometimes. Sometimes she wasn't sure if she was really the best person to look after them. When she saw Lilith make kicky feet in her sleep just like Danny always did, she cried the first time, unable to take it. They shouldn't have turned out like this and it was her fault and the worst part, the absolutely _unbearable_ one, was that Danny never blamed her for it. He never glared at her or got short-tempered with her or said a word about the Ghost Portal. She had destroyed his children's health and he still hugged her every time he dropped them off, thanked her for being an awesome grandmother. She wanted to scream that she wasn't, she was terrible, this was all on her, but the words wouldn't come. How was she supposed to apologize for this? She watched Alan shut his eyes against the light and felt a void inside her, a dark pit where tears should have welled up. She wanted to cry, but she couldn't. She'd cried herself out so much when the twins were born that there was nothing left.

In the other room, Lilith cried out, awake and annoyed her twin wasn't with her. What she lacked in size, she made up for in volume. Within seconds, Maddie heard Jack roll off the bed in their room and the thud of his feet hitting the floor. He was out in a flash, robe on and hair tousled. In an equally brief flash, he was out of the bedroom with Lilith in his arms, looking around.

"Where's Al?" he asked reflexively, before spotting the baby boy in Maddie's arms. "Oh. Right. Good catch, sweetie."

Alan tugged at the windowsill, trying to get closer to the cold. Lilith buried her head in Jack's neck, making happy babbling sounds interspersed with the word 'yeah', her own first word. It was also her favorite word, which she used for everything she liked in life. Rubbing her tiny face into the fabric of Jack's robe, she looked like a swath of snow against him, all bleached-out lack of color and uncanny fragility in the arms of her grandfather. Jack grinned at his wife, rubbing his granddaughter's back, but there was an exhaustion behind it, tiredness in his eyes that was hard to conceal. New wrinkles had appeared at his temples and his eyes, along with a permanent worry wrinkle in his forehead. No matter how hard he tried to pretend everything was fine, Lilith's eyes squinting hard at his face made even him falter. Her digestive system was more resilient than her brother's, but her eyes were farther gone from the get-go, a pale green like a piece of sun-bleached pastel paint.

"Boop," she said, poking Jack's nose. She dissolved into giggles immediately. "Yeah, yeah, boop!"

He forced a chuckle. Maddie pulled Alan away from the window as the phone rang, handing the squirming eleven-month old boy to his grandfather. Immediately, he seized Jack's hair in one hand and Lilith's in the other, looking incredibly pleased with himself. Lilith poked his nose, giggling, and no matter how much Maddie's heart broke looking at them, it was good to know they had each other. Too young to realize anything was wrong with themselves or each other, they began poking at each other while Jack gently moderated, rolling his eyes fondly. They got along pretty well so far, he thought, though it might've been due to being too little to argue just yet beyond yelling 'yeah' and 'no' at each other.

Snorting as they began yelling their favorite words at each other, he gently set them on the floor. Lilith flopped down dramatically and got louder, as always, while Alan grabbed her shirt collar. He wanted all the clothes for himself, Jack had discovered, which often translated to holding onto fabric and mumbling 'no' repeatedly like he was trying to claim it for his own. Laughing at their usual antics, he missed his wife going very still after she answered the phone and only looked up when she slammed the receiver down, shaking slightly.

"What is it?" he asked, tone as level as possible to keep from upsetting the twins.

She took one deep, stabilizing breath, then another. "It was the Mansons. They're suing us for child endangerment and revoking our partial custody rights unless… unless we can prove we _weren't_ the cause of their health problems."


	2. Chapter 2

Pamela Manson was trying her best.

All her life, she'd struggled to be a good mother to Sam when it felt like Sam didn't want anything to do with her. She had tried to talk to her dozens of times, only to get silence or sarcasm in response, so she'd tried to be there financially, if nothing else. She'd paid for Sam's degree in investigative journalism, she'd hired all the best staff available to make Sam's wedding a tasteful gothic art noveau affair, and when Sam had been uncharacteristically exhausted during her pregnancy, Pamela Manson personally called up Sam's boss to explain exactly how she would retaliate if her daughter didn't get extended maternity leave. Pamela was an imperfect mother. She knew that. She knew she had made a lot of mistakes when Sam was growing up – she should have been more open-minded, less focused on herself, and spent more time with her.

She wasn't going to make the same mistake with her grandchildren. Danny wanted to make sure the twins had a stable place to live and saw his parents' house as the best option; the apartment he and Sam had wasn't big enough for two babies, but the Fenton's house had more than enough spare rooms. More than that, he was admirably close with his parents, something Pam actually liked about him. He wanted his children to be connected to their grandparents, seeing as all four of his grandparents had died before he was ten. They were going to have what he didn't have. Danny was a good boy who turned into a good man, and Pam was determined to be a decent mother-in-law to him and spoil the twins rotten. She had a second chance at being close to her family.

Before she could even seize that chance, it had shattered.

The twins arrived a month early, amid screaming pain from Sam and eerie green discharge mixed in when her water broke. That was the first warning sign, terrifying because it was simply so foreign. Pamela had always thrown money at her daughter's problems. In the operating room, holding her hand as the doctors debated an emergency C-section, it was clear that she couldn't, this time. Sam shook, coated in cold sweat, with the effort of staying awake to see her children delivered. She was so strong, much stronger than Pamela herself had ever been, but even she froze when they cut the cord on Alan and quickly cleaned him before placing him in a ventilator. He was too pale, too unmoving, Lilith even smaller, and while neither woman said it, the ventilators looked like tiny tombs to them. Each child weighed less than five pounds. Their heartbeats, erratic, were the only sign they were alive besides the desperate gasps they took for air, as if they couldn't get enough no matter how hard they tried.

Sam had named them before dropping off into a sleep that couldn't possibly have been peaceful. Pamela had to explain things to Danny, which was hardly something she was equipped to do. She didn't know him that well, not really, but with his parents at work and still en route to the hospital, the job unceremoniously fell to her. Danny had looked inhumanly still, shocked beyond words, as he stared at his too-small children. He seemed too young, suddenly, to be a father. Pam had pulled him into a gentle hug he hadn't returned, hadn't seemed to know _how_ to return. His blue eyes were fixed on his children, clouded with a mixture of emotions and tears he didn't let fall.

"This is all my fault," he'd muttered, too low for her to have been meant to hear it.

And damn it all, it _wasn't_ , it was his parent's fault. Pamela thought back to the green glow and their work with ghosts and she knew what was the real cause. She also knew that if she said it, Sam would never speak to her. Danny would be broken by it. So she did what she always did: she threw money at the problem. Her husband went to the synagogue to pray, her mother made food for Sam and Danny while they alternated staying at the hospital and sleeping at home, and Pamela started looking into doctors. There were a lot of specialists in all sorts of birth defects, but finding one even willing to touch a ghost-related case was tricky. Doctors didn't want to breech medical ethics by fiddling with what they didn't understand. Getting the right staff was a marathon effort of phone calls, emails and repeated interviews and reviews of credentials.

Diagnosis after diagnosis was proposed and found incomplete. Marfan Syndrome, Adie Syndrome, sleep apnea, malformed heart valves, Primary Juvenile Glaucoma, heart palpitations – and that was just what could be _diagnosed_. Alan's constant overheating was as inexplicable as Lilith's inability to stay warm. Both had struggled to breathe for the first week of their lives. Pamela spent a lot of time trying to focus on getting help and not on being angry with Danny's parents. God knew Maddie looked just as devastated as Pamela did. Jack seemed to be actively trying to be in denial, the shock had hit him so badly. They hadn't hurt the children out of active malice. She knew that.

But they _had_ let their son be exposed to ectoplasmic radiation for four years of his life without ever thinking to question the health side effects, and that was hard to take when the consequences were so dire.

Pamela was more than happy to babysit when her daughter and son-in-law asked. Unlike the Fentons, she could afford a nurse to be on hand to assess the twins' developmental progress, which was touch and go. They were very responsive to visual and audio stimuli, if less so visual than audio, and they certainly weren't averse to people, which were good signs for their cognitive development. Alan's lack of cones in his eyes meant he was effectively monochromatic colorblind, but Lilith could identify and point to colors. Hilariously and adorably, Alan would watch Lilith's actions when asked to point to something red or blue or yellow and mimic her. On the other hand, words came slowly to them, and they tired easily sometimes. Pamela got used to putting them in bed more than she ever had Sam, swallowing back her anger as Alan in particular slept for entire eighteen hour stints sometimes. The Fentons rarely spoke about the children's health to her, which couldn't mean anything good for when the kids were over at their house. _They did this,_ she'd thought, again and again, and again and again she had to remind herself that they probably knew that and that yelling at them wouldn't fix anything.

Then she overheard Danny arguing on his phone one night on the porch as he came to pick up the kids. "No, Dad, I don't really want to help with the Ghost Portal 3.0. I'm – I'm busy, okay?" The strain in his voice was startling. He sounded close to snapping at his father, which was wholly out of character for him. That was when it hit her.

The Ghost Portal, the thing that had done _this_ to her grandchildren, was somehow important enough to Jack Fenton that he was remaking it rather than shutting the project down for good.

She spent the night putting together her legal team and a month building her case.

These people were dangerous to children. Someone had to stop them.

That didn't mean she enjoyed being the one who did it.

* * *

Danny showed up to pick up his kids looking, Maddie thought, about as tired as she felt.

Lilith bolted over on wildly shaky legs to him, having never known fear, while Alan walked over, tiny brow furrowed in concentration. They were both behind on their balancing skills – crawling was still easier for them than standing or walking, though Lilith would try if it meant she could hug her parents or grandparents. Alan had fallen hard once in his haste to try to get outside into the cool air and hadn't tried running since. Bruises took a month to heal on him, while the hesitance the experience instilled in him was taking longer than that to wear off. Scooping him up from the floor, Maddie brought him over to Danny as he picked up Lilith, grinning when she poked his nose and laughing when she giggled.

"Hey, Princess," he cooed, adoring as ever. "Did you let your grandparents sleep in today?"

"Yeah!" Lilith cheered.

"No," Alan said, more truthfully, getting a snort out Danny, who leaned down to kiss him on the head.

Maddie couldn't muster up a smile, looking between them. "Sweetie, is Sam in the car? I need to talk to her. To both of you, actually."

He blinked. "Um, yeah, but why? Is something wrong? You, uh, you look a little…" Danny faltered, unable to find the right words. Something must have showed on her face, because his expression grew serious. "Hold on, I'll go get her."

Alan tilted his head, squinting after his father and sister. Was it paranoia, or was his gaze a little more unfocused? One more thing to ask the optometrist about at the next consultation, Maddie thought worriedly. The twins had recovered from eye surgery as best as they were going to. If their vision faded further, that was something they'd have to address when they came to it. Right now, she had bigger problems on her hands. Pamela Manson wasn't looking for money in damages, she wanted the Fenton's rights to have children in their household revoked permanently, and that-

That hurt most because Maddie couldn't disagree with it, really. She let Alan lean against her shoulder tiredly while the sounds of Jack making breakfast filled the house. Although she'd only just gotten up, she felt as if today had gone on forever, and she was relieved to smell fresh coffee brewing. They'd need a lot of it to get through this. In a way, his actions reminded her of when the twins had been born. He'd made her comfort food day and night, rubbing her back while she cried, holding her close when words failed her. But Jack couldn't fix this with pancakes and love, or it would've been fixed a long time ago.

When Danny and Sam were situated around the kitchen table, a twin in each of their laps, Maddie sat down to the large breakfast Jack always made when stressed. He'd always tried to comfort her and others through food, but the only ones able to eat were the children as the adults sipped coffee and tried to find a place to begin. Jack's hair had more white in it than it had a few years ago. The thought hit Maddie that for all she knew, ghostly radiation could be affecting his health, too, albeit on a delayed timescale. She tried not to shudder. Now wasn't the time. She straightened up, looked Danny and then Sam in the eyes and began speaking.

"Mr. and Mrs. Manson have decided to sue us to take our temporary custody privileges away and place a restraining order on us to keep us from having them here."

Sam's response was instant. "Bull-" she glanced down at Lilith and changed words mid-syllable, "-crap! On what grounds?"

Jack and Maddie shared guilty looks. He put his hand over his wife's, lovingly. "Child endangerment," he said quietly, unable to keep up his usual good cheer. "Retroactive child negligence isn't a legal charge they can hit us with, but it's enough to revoke our rights to keep them here overnight from now on or have them visit."

"I don't understand," Danny muttered, brow furrowing. "You didn't do anything wrong."

"I did, son," Jack corrected him gently, glancing down as Alan sucked on water from his sippy cup loudly. "I _did_. I've been doing it for years."

" _We_ have," Maddie corrected _him_ , firmly. "You didn't build the Ghost Portal alone, Jack."

Danny held up a hand. "Will somebody please tell us what's going on?"

His mother couldn't look at him. She watched her reflection in her coffee instead, letting the steam coil around her face. "Pamela had a doctor do genetic testing and determine that ectoplasm is in the DNA of both children, which doctors are reasonably sure is what caused their… problems." She was always careful with her words in front of the children. The last thing she wanted was for them to think she thought they were broken or bad in any way. "The flaws in their genetic code are similar to what happens when someone is around a source of radiation, and the Ghost Portal puts out ectoplasmic radiation at a higher level than we were aware of. A higher level, Danny, that you lived around for four years. That's more than enough time to damage your DNA, and that's why… that's why Alan and Lilith are…"

_Dying,_ she thought, irrationally, but didn't say. She leaned against her husband and watched Danny and Sam, waiting for a reaction. Sam was biting her lip hard, thinking, gaze directed at Alan and then at Danny. She seemed to be waiting for him to say something, for him to make some kind of decision, and instead he just ran his fingers through Lilith's long hair soothingly as he tried to control his breathing. _A restraining order, child negligence charges, child endangerment charges – they'd want to check the house for that, right? They'd get one good rating off of the Ghost Portal and have an ironclad case._ He rubbed Lilith's cheek as she yawned, nuzzling up to him. _They'd need an expert, though, to do the testing. That'd take time. I still have time to fix this if I tell them._ _ **If**_ _._

The silence was deafening.

A long time ago, before they'd gotten married, Danny and Sam had this conversation, this when-is-it-okay-to-tell-your-parents conversation. They'd agreed a long time ago that barring the law getting involved, there was no need to tell Danny's parents what he was. The knowledge he'd been lying to them for years would break their hearts without factoring in their prejudice towards ghosts, however much that had mellowed over the years. Besides that, while ghost attacks were at an all-time low, any ghost who knew Danny's human identity could come after his parents and sister and the fewer people who knew Danny Fenton was Danny Phantom, the safer everyone would be. That need for safety only increased when Sam found out she was pregnant. Connecting the two identities would put his children in danger on top of his wife and he flat-out couldn't do that to her. Sam had been there for him every step of the way in this superhero gig. His children were as innocent as Sam was loyal. They never asked to be born.

Besides, he was kidding himself if he thought either of them wouldn't be easy targets for any ghost. They were nearly blind, had poor reflexes, and were predisposed to heart problems. Even when they got older, they'd always be the easiest targets. Their lives were so easily snuffed out if someone wanted them out of the picture that it was terrifying. Danny had woken up in a cold sweat more than once after having nightmares Vlad had come after them. The nightmares were preposterous, of course; Vlad knew that Danny would probably outright murder him if he tried anything, and Danny had scared himself with the way his eyes went to a _red_ glow reminiscent of Dan's telling Vlad as much. Yet, for all the nightmares he had of the kids having a medical emergency or being taken out by a ghost or being stolen away from him, he'd never contemplated Sam's parents turning on him. They liked him, and he sort of liked them, despite their corny ways. They were overly wholesome but they meant well.

That sucked. He couldn't entirely get mad at them over this when they were trying to protect the kids. They weren't bad people for wanting to keep them away from the Ghost Portal. Danny himself had insisted on stricter security around the Ghost Portal when Sam got pregnant. Of course the Mansons were worried. His parents were worried, too. He could see that in their eyes. _They're blaming themselves because they don't know. Sam's parents don't know. Nobody knows. That's my fault._ Danny watched Lilith put her fingers in her mouth and corrected himself, _**all**_ _of this is my fault. I'm not stupid. I know basic stuff about genetics. I should have gotten genetic testing– I could have asked Clockwork beforehand–_

_But I didn't. So I know what I have to do._

"Sam, could you take the kids up for their nap? There's something I've gotta tell them."

To her credit, she gave his shoulder a supportive squeeze but didn't argue. If she could have feasibly talked her mother out of this without having to have Danny reveal his secret, she would have. Her quick response told him that wasn't an option. This was what they were left with: the reveal he'd spent so much of his life praying he'd never have to make. He wished Jazz were here to soften the blow or tell him how to approach this better. He wished he'd done this earlier so they'd never have ended up in this situation to begin with. Danny winced internally at the realization most of this was entirely his fault.

His parents were giving him the strangest, most concerned looks of their lives. He found that now he was the one who couldn't look at them directly. The seconds of silence stretched on like a chain of infinities, and when he spoke, it took incredible effort. Each word was like a boulder he was struggling to push uphill as his stomach twisted into knots at the thought of what he was doing. Clockwork had told him once that half-ghosts were rarely genetically compatible with humans and almost never had kids. If he ever had to rewind time to before the twins were born, they probably wouldn't be born again, nor would he and Sam likely ever have any other kids. There were no do-overs. Faced with that kind of pressure, he found himself bouncing his knee under the table, nervous energy making his heartbeat loud as a drum.

"When I was fourteen," he started, picking his words as carefully as possible, "I activated the Ghost Portal. You know that. What I didn't tell you, because I didn't want you to worry at the time – and I'm really, _really_ sorry, I _mean it_ – was that when I did that, I was inside it."

Maddie locked up. Jack's mouth opened, but no words came out.

Danny pushed on before he could lose his nerve. "I died. A little. I mean, my heart stopped and I quit breathing, but I'm fine now," he added quickly, trying to do damage control, "I just, uh, some things changed that I didn't really let you know about… Mom, Mom please don't cry…"

A half-scream of a sob tore out of Maddie's throat. Jack had to hastily grab her to keep her from collapsing on the spot even though she was sitting down. Tears spilled down her cheeks, her breathing coming fast. "Pam was right," she whispered. "I – I – Danny I'm so, so sorry, I didn't – I should have known, I'm a scientist, you're my son, how did I not _notice-_ "

"Mom!" He jumped up to try to put a hand on her shoulder, pull her in for a hug, snap her out of it, but with the same kind of zero-to-sixty speed Lilith could sometimes have, his mother fled the room, a bolt of light blue robes and pajamas and red-brown hair in the cold, unrelenting light of morning. Danny stood there for a moment, too stunned to process what he should do next.

His father held up a hand, standing up. "You're – you're gonna have to give your mother a moment, Danny, okay? I think…" He inhaled deeply, evenly, and let it out slowly. Danny had never seen his father look so old, so weary, and it was hard to take. "I think you and Sam should take the kids and go over to your new apartment. You two are almost completely moved in, right?" He forced a smile so fragile it cut through Danny's heart like a knife.

"Dad…" Danny said softly, but his father was already retreating, blinking back tears, and then Danny was alone in the kitchen with all the untouched food his father had made and his thoughts.

* * *

Tucker came over with a dozen vegan doughnuts and his legal briefcase.

As a lawyer, his specialty was laws regarding technology, so he could not, by law, give Danny and Sam legal counsel. But if he happened to stop by their apartment and the topic happened to come up, there was no law against him discussing it with them. This was the sort of technicality he normally hated when other people indulged in it, an irony that wasn't lost on him as he looked around their relatively new place of residence. They'd done an admirable job unpacking and decorating inbetween work and ghost hunting. Still, if Child Protective Services had any reason to look into this place, it wouldn't be hard to argue the kids were safer with Pamela and Jeremy. His girlfriend was a social worker. He'd told her the details as soon as Danny had called, and her grim expression spoke volumes about how little she expected the courts to rule in Jack and Maddie's favor. It didn't help that they didn't intend to press criminal charges, just bar the children from Fentonworks and all associated property; that relatively lighter set of demands was going to be much easier to get a judge to agree to than anything more intense.

"They're not doomed," Adalet told him firmly. He loved his girlfriend's refusal to be cynical, despite the circumstances. "I just think their legal options are going to be limited unless they can produce some really solid evidence the Ghost Portal's radiation hasn't changed Daniel's DNA, which would take DNA tests of him, Jazz for secondary evidence and compare-contrast, and possibly his parents. And that's a lot of money if the state chooses not to pay for it, which is possible."

"So they're basically doomed," he deadpanned, and he could hear her sigh over the phone. It sounded like a rush of static in his ears.

"Not if they can get the Mansons to drop it. In the meantime, I'll pull the Fenton's files, see if they've ever been charged with anything else the judge might take into consideration. Now get off the phone and drive safe, loser."

The good news was that so far, as Sam had confirmed after screaming at her mother over the phone for the better part of an hour, the Mansons weren't looking to take away Danny and Sam's right to custody. They were charging Jack and Maddie Fenton with child endangerment, possible criminal negligence, and a violation of state radiation safety standards. It was unneeded, really, in order to get them to relinquish custody, but it was enough to make the point that they were serious. Tucker had seen this sort of thing before in court; uncertain if a single charge would stick, some clients would throw a dozen at someone in order to make the message clear and get _something_ on file, come hills or high water.

He felt a thwack to his shoe as he entered the Fenton's apartment and looked down to see Lilith, who giggled. "Booped!" she proclaimed, scuttling away out of reach on all fours swiftly. Tucker rolled his eyes at her fondly. Lilith had learned the word boop from a cartoon and adopted it with gusto. She was always poking things, usually her brother, who put up with it with admirable patience given her persistence. Maybe it was a twin thing, that they tolerated each other so well. As a single child, Tucker hardly had any basis for comparison.

Alan was asleep in Danny's arms, dark hair lying flat except for a single tuft in the back. "Aw, cute. He's got your bad hair," the nerd noted, earning a flat look from Danny. "Don't worry, man, he'll grow out of it. You did. Took you until college, but still."

"I think I've got their beds as set up as they're going to be," Sam announced, emerging from the smaller bedroom in the apartment looking haggard. "Not as comfy as their set up at Fentonworks, but it'll do. Are those doughnuts?"

"Yup," Tucker confirmed, watching out of the corner of his eye as Lilith yawned and stretched out on the floor, content to nap wherever she could still see her twin. _Well, to whatever degree she can see,_ he thought, glancing away. "Have either of you had breakfast yet?" When they shook their heads, he groaned. "I swear, it's like college all over again. Put the kids to bed and I'll feed you two while you fill me in."

Their kitchenette was well-organized, probably due to how little they actually used it for cooking. The kids were still on baby foods and Sam was completely fine eating vegetables in various questionable states, while Danny rarely cooked beyond making himself a grilled cheese sandwich. Tucker got each of them a glass of water, knowing how they got when they were stressed, and quietly thanked God he wasn't in their shoes. Twins, in-laws, ghosts, none of it was anything he wanted to deal with in his own life, and he wasn't sure how he'd hold up under the same kind of pressure. While he'd contemplated asking Adalet to move in with him, he hadn't really considered the gravity of having kids or what could go wrong until Alan and Lilith were born. He still remembered rushing into the waiting room after Danny sent him a text that just read _Tuck come quick I ruined everything oh God_ followed by a complete refusal to pick up the phone. Danny had been so shaken, so visibly a wreck, that Tucker hadn't dared to make a joke then to lighten the mood. The half-ghost was right on the brink of a breakdown then and frankly, he hadn't gotten much better in the intervening months.

Danny might not have said it out loud, but his best friend and his wife knew he blamed himself. He'd had a lot of time to make that blame seem rational in his own head. Tucker wasn't sure how to get him to see that he hadn't exactly chosen to get ghost powers. That might just make Sam mad at herself for asking Danny to check out the Ghost Portal to begin with and frankly blaming each other wasn't going to fix anything right now. They'd all collectively done enough of that for several lifetimes. Handing Sam and Danny a doughnut each, Tucker waited until they'd both taken a bite to start in on the questions he had.

"So, your parents know?" he asked Danny point-blank, who winced.

"Not exactly," he sighed, staring at his doughnut mournfully. "I got as far as explaining the accident and then my Mom freaked out. She thinks this is all her fault for making the Ghost Portal. I, uh, I don't think she's going to be ready to hear the rest for a while, Tuck."

Tucker gave him a sympathetic look. "Yeah. Makes sense; I think my mom would do the same in your mom's shoes. Sam, are you sure there's no way to get your parents to drop the charges? That's really the best option, here, by a pretty wide margin."

Sam forced herself to swallow a bite of food. She was too anxious to enjoy it, but she appreciated that Tucker had gotten them for her. _If I have to go through this,_ she thought, _I'm glad I've got him by my side._ "My mom's afraid that being at Fentonworks will make the kids' conditions worsen and since ectoplasmic radiation isn't really well studied, I don't know how to convince her she's wrong. She's not trying to be awful, she's just – she doesn't want any other kids exposed to it, either. That's why she's doing this. I don't think she wants to throw Danny's parents in jail or anything."

"That's what's going to happen, though," her black friend informed her, unable to find a gentler way to put such a horrific truth. "I don't know if your mom understood how serious the charges she chose are, but they're looking at jail time if you don't get her to drop it. Child Protective Services doesn't mess around in Amity Park, guys. The city can't afford any more negative press than it already gets from being a ghost hotspot. Frankly, they might pursue charges even if Mrs. Manson dropped them. Anything ghost-related gets forwarded to the federal authorities around here. I'm having Adalet ask her boss at the courthouse to delay that until the paperwork's been properly reviewed, but we're looking at two, maybe three days to play with, here."

Danny snorted, a broken laugh threatening to bubble up out of him. "And they're not even charging the right person," he said joylessly, making Sam and Tucker look at each other in concern. "Not even close."

He sounded so much older than twenty-five, Tucker thought, and swallowed back his own mixed emotions. Danny was getting old before his time living like this, working and parenting and fighting ghosts. He was already running himself into the ground before all this happened. Now, the strain was finally starting to become too much. He could see it in how Danny couldn't bring himself to touch food, how his hands were clenched into fists, the way he stared off into the distance. There was a limit to how much Danny could take. Although he'd always brushed off his friends' concerns before, even though he'd told them he believed them when they said this wasn't his fault, he was lying. Of course he was; Danny would do almost anything to keep other people happy and get them to quit worrying about him. In the face of pending legal action, though, the charade fell apart entirely.

Standing up, Danny took a deep breath. "Right. I've gotta – look, I don't want to do this, but I need to go to the only person I know of who might have advice. Or help us lawyer up, if it comes to that."

Sam raised an eyebrow, clearly dubious. "Vlad? Danny, he doesn't have any kids. I doubt he's going to have much for you on that count."

"But he loves my mom," he reminded her tiredly. "He won't let her do jail time, and we can't afford a law team fit to go up against your mom's otherwise." Turning to Tucker, he asked uncomfortably, "Tuck, I know you're busy, but-"

"I can stay and help look after the kids." He pulled Danny into a quick, loose hug. "You don't even have to ask. Dude, you're like, my brother I never had. I got this."

Danny smiled thankfully at him. "I'll keep my phone on me. Text me if you need anything. I won't be gone long, guys."

And with that, he transformed and took to the skies before either of them could talk him out of it.


	3. Chapter 3

A lot of Vlad's behavior made more sense, now, Danny reflected as he flew towards Vlad's house.

One of the things that had always been confusing to him was that Vlad hadn't simply had his own son with some willing human woman. Surrogates were a thing, after all. As a teenager, it had seemed insane that Vlad was so determined to chase after Danny. If Vlad couldn't have children without these same complications, though, then – well, alright, even with that knowledge it was still crazy, but it was _less_ crazy by a considerable margin. Vlad already felt he'd lost his best friends. He wouldn't be able to take it if he'd had a child and then lost them to health complications. Presumably, as a scientist, he'd known the risks. Danny felt his eyes keep glowing after he shifted to his human form on Vlad's doorstep as the realization hit him: _he knew this could happen and he_ _ **never told me**_ _._

He didn't wait for Vlad to open the door, he phased through it and huffed out a sigh of blue breath, tensing the second he saw him. _Keep it together,_ he told himself through gritted teeth. _You need his help, now is not the time to hit him. No matter how good it'd feel or how much he has it coming._

"Daniel? To what do I owe the pleasure?" Vlad smiled, slick as ever. He beckoned Danny into the foyer with well-practiced ease, infuriatingly calm. "So good to see you; I did miss our little chats. Tell me, how are you?"

Danny's face remained locked in a scowl. "Mom might be going to jail, so, you know. I've been better."

It took a lot to throw Vlad off, but he visibly started, turning to analyze Danny's face with a darkening expression. "I don't understand. She hasn't done anything illegal in her life, to the best of my knowledge – she didn't even drink underage at the parties we attended back in college, Daniel."

"Turns out," the younger half-ghost said lowly, eyes still glowing faintly, "Lilith and Alan's genetic deformities are a result of ectoplasmic radiation, which, since normal people don't know people like you and I exist, my in-laws are blaming on my parents. Via a lawsuit," he clarified, glad to see Vlad flinch as the reality of the situation hit him. "They're getting charged with child negligence and child endangerment. Potentially four counts of it, since Jazz and I were minors when the Portal was first activated."

"I need a drink," Vlad muttered, moving over to the liquor cabinet. He had the decency to look guilty, glancing at a picture of himself, Maddie and Jack on the wall. "I cannot fathom… Maddie's blaming herself, isn't she?"

Danny winced, nodding. He could still see his mother's sobbing face in his mind's eye. "Yeah. Mom loves the twins. She hates herself for what she thinks she did to them. And I hate _you_ for not telling me this would happen to my kids back when Sam first got pregnant, but we can't fix that. All we can do now is keep her and my Dad out of jail."

Vlad stared at the drink he'd poured himself, then poured another one and handed it to Danny, who didn't make any move to drink it. He had a long day ahead of him with the kids. As tempting as it was to down the thing, he couldn't, because he had to put other people first. That was Danny's life in a nutshell, really. Life kept throwing things at him and he kept trying to keep the worst of the damage off of innocent people. Though he was proud of the work he did, he knew at some point he'd have to bring in outside help. He couldn't fix this by himself, nor could he do damage control without someone more experienced at the helm, and the helplessness was terrifying. Everything was out of his hands. Often in his life, it felt like he was trapped in a horror movie waiting for the villain to appear, but now, knowing his parents could go to jail over his lies and his children were disabled because of his own lack of foresight, he felt like he was the monster in his own life story. He leaned against the wall, watching the liquid in the glass catch the light.

_I wonder if the twins will live long enough to hit drinking age?_

_How dare you think 'if'?_

"Screw it," he murmured, figuring one drink wouldn't get him drunk, and threw back his glass. The burn seared into his throat and set his stomach on fire. Good. He wanted it to hurt, wanted to hurt like his kids were hurting every single day. Wordlessly, he handed his glass back to Vlad, who filled it again without so much as a snide raised eyebrow.

"I didn't tell you this could happen," Vlad said softly, sounding older than Danny had ever known him, "Because my research into halfa physiology doesn't show many of their children surviving long enough to be born. Maddie told me the day Sam announced she was pregnant. They were both so happy, and so were you, and Jack, well, I suspect they heard him in the next town over. And who was I, to walk into your life and tell you and your wife that you were celebrating for nothing, that a late term miscarriage was practically a given? What kind of man do you think I am, Daniel?"

He shrugged, feeling like a kid again, not wanting to relinquish his anger. If he wasn't angry with Vlad, who was he left with to be mad at? "I don't know. I guess I just thought you'd have given me a heads-up after all that time spent trying to make me your 'son'. If I'm your son, those are _your_ grandkids on the line now." He watched the older man drink, eyes distant with thoughts and memories. "I mean, if you were in my shoes, wouldn't you want a warning?"

"No. I don't think it would have helped back then."

The world seemed to tilt off its' axis. He blinked as the older man's usage of the words 'I' and 'back then' landed, with all their horrifying implications. "What?"

Vlad sat down in the nearest armchair, taking a long drink. "After college, I was, ah, I believe the modern term is 'friends with benefits' with someone. A woman I'd known from business classes, who went on to become quite a negotiator of sorts. We were good friends. I wouldn't say I loved her like Maddie, but we could make sense together in that space inbetween friendship and romance."

"And she got pregnant?" he asked, knowing the answer as his eyes lost their angry glow. _I don't want to hear this,_ he thought, _I don't know if I can take this, if this is what I think it is…_ but he forced himself to ask anyway. Any information that could help with this whole situation, he needed to get. When Vlad nodded a grim confirmation, Danny pressed on, voice low and cautious, _"_ And the baby…?"

"Premature labor at six months," he replied with the guilt-ridden tone of a man confessing a great sin, a personal failing. "We got the full diagnoses after he died; Friedreich's Ataxia, kyphoscoliosis, gastroschisis, and what he died of, two malformed lungs that ultimately collapsed. He lived for two weeks, the longest weeks of my life. I will spare you the worst of it; ultimately, his mother left me, left the States entirely, actually. I don't think she could take the reminders of him that she saw in me." He smiled, eyes hollow. "My little Ira had the most beautiful red eyes. So bold and brave, he was so unafraid and… I'm digressing, forgive me."

Danny couldn't find his voice.

Vlad stood up to pour himself another glass of alcohol. "The time I got to spend with him was the best of my life. If your children were going to be miscarried, or only live a short while, then I wanted to give you your two weeks, or whatever you got with them. And I wanted you and Sam to be able to have the experience of preparing for children. That Hanukkah you two had your baby shower was so sentimental as to surpass being tripe and just be _sweet_. Maddie was practically glowing, she was so happy. You were more joyous and lighthearted than I'd ever seen you. Who would I be, if I had barged in to tell you that you shouldn't have been?"

They stared at each other for several long, heavy moments. Danny wasn't sure if he could ever forgive Vlad for all the things he'd done to him over the years, all the ways he'd made him miserable, the battles, the anxiety, the torment. This revelation did not absolve Vlad Masters of being a genuinely bad human being for the bulk of his life and it would be insane to pretend it did. But at the same time, remembering how Pamela had to steady him as he tried to catch his breath looking at Lilith and Alan for the first time, he knew he wouldn't have made it out of their sudden, abrupt deaths sane. Those two weeks of watching Ira's condition slowly deteriorate would have broken Danny – and he had friends and was actually married. Trying to go through all that alone was something he wouldn't wish on his worst enemy, which was normally a figure of speech but in this case was horrifyingly literal.

"I have made mistakes," the older man continued, turning his glass around and around in his hands. "I may have made a mistake not telling you. I don't know, little badger. I was raised in an extremely conservative Russian Orthodox family. Perhaps it was wrong to impose my values onto your situation. But this, of all things, I never intended to hurt you with. I promise you, I didn't."

"I believe you," Danny managed to choke out, voice cracking with emotion before he pulled it together. "I believe you, and, since you've been through this, you know how much I can't let my Mom be blamed for this when it's my fault. This is destroying her. She's a good person, she can't take thinking she hurt kids. If you love her, this – this is how you show her, Vlad."

Vlad's eyes were unbearably kind, his expression laden with sympathy. In any other circumstances, that would have been impossible, but for all he disliked Danny at points, there was a shared suffering between them now, a not-quite-bond. _Traumagenic connectivity,_ Jazz's voice helpfully supplied in Danny's mind. _It's usually observed in PTSD survivors who have similar sources of trauma._ Danny forced the thought away. He couldn't picture himself or Vlad in that light. That would mean taking a long, hard look at himself when he needed to keep his mind on his family. One day, when the kids were in college and this was all a funny story they told over the dinner table at Thanksgiving, he'd focus on him. Right now, he needed to find a way to make it to that day.

"Oh, Daniel. This isn't your fault." The older man shook his head sadly, eyes downcast and filled with a mixture of sympathy and pain. "Of all those I could blame, you aren't in the top twenty – and you know I would tell you if I thought otherwise. I'll help your parents with their legal defense, but you cannot go on believing that you caused this. You have to move past that."

He met his arch-enemy's eyes evenly. "Have you moved past Ira's death?" The name tasted unfamiliar on his tongue. Ira Masters. A child who hadn't made it a month. Danny felt cold in ways that had nothing to do with the spring.

"…no. But I am not someone you've ever wanted to emulate."

"Yeah, well. First time for everything."

* * *

Jeremy Manson pulled his daughter into a tight, loving hug.

"I'm so, so sorry, sweetie," he murmured, running a hand through her hair. The low ponytail she wore it in these days was a bit sloppy looking; clearly, this whole thing had her frazzled, and he couldn't blame her. "If I'd known your mother had filed a lawsuit, I would have stopped her, I-"

She buried her head in his shoulder, breathing in deeply. "I know, Dad. I know." Her voice shook slightly. "I wish Grandma Ida were here. She'd have talked some sense into Mom."

He nodded. "She would have. But I'm sure we'll figure this out ourselves. And," he added, gently squeezing Sam's shoulder as they broke apart, "I know she was so touched by the names you chose, and by you taking them to her when she was too weak to leave her bed."

"She was awesome with them." Sam smiled briefly. "Lilith Ida and Alan Elijah – the most nineteenth century names this side of the ocean. I wonder what Grandpa Elijah would've done?"

"Sworn a blue streak and start a fight, probably," he chuckled, rubbing her back soothingly. "You're more his daughter than Pam is, sometimes. Now, I couldn't get most of the twins' things from Fentonworks – if they turn out to be contaminated, then that's more legal trouble the Fentons don't need right now. But Jack gave me their baby blankets. Seems Maddie spent all day making sure those were safe enough to send."

Tucker and Sam both looked worried. He was the one who spoke, haltingly. "How's, um, how's she taking this? And Jack, too, I mean."

He bit his lip for a second, parsing his words. "They were glad I was in the dark about all this. Jack's – I don't know, I really don't. I can't read him well. I think Maddie's very tired, and very sad, and he's doing everything he can for her right now."

Sam stared at the tiles on the floor. _If I'd convinced Danny to tell her earlier, she wouldn't be like this right now._ Her hands clenched without her knowing it as she replayed a million conversations with Danny in her head. _If I hadn't used the 'he's sick' excuse so much in high school, maybe my Mom wouldn't have gotten it in her head the Portal made people sick._ For the first time since she was in high school, she could feel herself beginning to lose a grip on the anger she used to pull herself out of her depressive thoughts. There was only so much anger she could direct at other people before some of it turned inward on herself. She glanced at the baby monitor, which showed the twins fast asleep in their cribs, Alan with his blankets kicked off, Lilith curled into a ball. They were her kids. They depended on her for everything, including stability, and she'd failed to provide that for them from the get-go. Danny would never agree if she told him, but that was only due to his own self-sacrificing nature, not because she actually wasn't the guilty party here.

Her father pulled her into another hug, one-armed this time. "Hey. How about when Danny gets back from getting legal advice, we all go out to dinner? You know how much the twins love pancakes, and Tucker already told me you didn't get lunch."

Sam shot him a dirty look, but her friend was unrepentant. "Sam, when my dad had to have heart surgery our senior year, you basically turned into my second mom. I'm allowed to return the favor. Get over it."

"Love you too," she muttered, torn between fondness and tiredness. "Don't you and Adalet have plans for tonight, though?"

He shrugged. "Before this happened, yeah, but she's been doing her own legal research. We're gonna have to have a group discussion about this later anyway. Might as well get food first, right?" Reaching out for her hand, he squeezed it gently. "Sam, you're not doing anybody any favors by wearing yourself out. Go take a shower – your dad and I can take point on watching the kids – and let us get you and the kids fed. Seriously, it's alright to give yourself a couple of minutes to do some maintenance."

Her father nodded vigorously. "He's right, Sammikins. We've got this, really. These aren't the first babies I've had to keep watch over, you know. It'll be okay."

She wanted to contest that last statement, but ultimately just gave in and went to go take a shower.

The water muffled the sounds of her crying completely.

Sam had never been one for crying, despite its' prolific nature in the goth aesthetic. Crying was too exhausting, brought her down to a place emotionally where she just wanted to sleep, and worst of all was how concerned other people got. Her father always got worried, maybe unduly so given she hadn't ever really displayed any signs of depression. Tucker was worse because he was clearly trying so, so hard to fix everything and be there for her and advising her out of court put his legal credentials in danger if anyone found out. All these people were trying so hard for her that she couldn't let them see her break down.

She wasn't crying out of hopelessness. She'd seen a lot more dire circumstances in her lifetime, especially with Danny. Ida, her grandmother, had always told her that crying healed a woman's cracked psyche, which was why women could endure so much more than men. Sam wasn't sure she believed that, but she knew that if she didn't admit to herself that not being able to save her children from all this was frustrating. It hurt. _Sam_ hurt, ached for all the things she could have done and could have prevented. After the shower was over she'd throw on a fresh change of clothes, put on her makeup, and face down this latest set of seemingly insurmountable odds. She'd take Danny's hand in hers as hope seemed lost the way she had a dozen times prior.

For a moment, though, she just needed to cry as the comforting hot water washed over her, because she was only human, and in the face of ghostly matters that felt insufficient and insignificant.


	4. Chapter 4

When Sam was first getting into journalism, she'd been assigned a partner.

Independent reporting was great in theory and sometimes in practice, but Sam had an unfortunately intense ability to get the worst reaction out of anyone she was interviewing. This was great for big, explosive interviews that inevitably went viral once posted online. This was garbage for interviews that required more delicate finessing, and so the first two years of her career were spent, under the direct orders of her boss, working alongside an older, more experienced reporter. Granted, Setiawan Rahayu was all of five years older than her, not some grizzled veteran. He was perhaps the only one in her field of work who could match her in dry sarcasm, in addition to being just as determined as she was in pursuit of the truth. Rahayu was one of few people who believed her when she tried to explain something was incredibly off about Vlad Masters' insane streak of good luck leading to a massive fortune.

As such, he was knee-deep in an investigation into Vlad's finances when Vlad put the paperwork into motion to fund a legal team for Madeleine Fenton. Like a cryptid, Rahayu came across this highly secret information in the dead of a moonless night while swathed in all black, illuminated only by the dull glow of his computer screen as what he referred to as experimental music and what Sam referred to as 'unholy noise', and perhaps the horror-esque music was fitting. There was something deeply unsettling about the idea of getting involved in his colleague's family feud, but at the same time, Sam had never trusted Vlad. To work with him willingly, things had to be catastrophic, and that… well, that made him want a closer look. _I'm already breaking all since of ethical journalism to spy on the man. What's the saying, they can only hang you once?_

The ensuing digging turned up precious few facts. Fortunately, Rahayu didn't need a lot to work with for leads to put together the bigger picture. There was a set of legal charges for child endangerment pending processing – which meant there was time, still, for them to be dropped before they were acted upon by the law – from Sam's parents against Daniel Fenton's parents. There was a legal team to defend the latter party from the former being put in action that night, indicating no one dared seriously hope for the charges to be dropped without a fight. Most fascinating, however, was one of the members of the legal team. A doctor, of course, should be expected to be called in for both sides of these sorts of cases when rich people were involved. That was standard. What wasn't standard was to bring in a _radiobiologist_ , and on both sides, no less. Not only would the cost of consultation be absurdly high, but even convincing one to come suggested the real, solid chance that actual radiation was at play in high enough levels to be a danger to humans in Amity Park.

His mind went to Alan and Lilith. Rahayu had shown up for the baby shower alongside a few other people she'd met in the journalism business with his botched attempt at a knitted baby blanket. After laughing at how much he sucked at being domestic, Sam had hugged him and told him she'd send a picture of the twins with it to him once they were born. She had, and that picture had fallen into his email inbox three weeks after the birth. A month into an undercover op meant to expose the complicity of the Boston police department in human trafficking, he had been too exhausted to process the horror when he'd heard initially that the kids weren't entirely okay. Staring at their snowy white skin and pale, almost reflective eyes, he realized the depth of what had happened. These kids had been dealt an awful, terrible hand by genetics.

An outlandishly bad hand, actually, now that he paused to think about it. There was no way that they spontaneously had so many rare health conditions, almost all of which were genetic, without a single person prior on any side of their family having anything remotely similar to any of those conditions. That was insane. The odds were astronomical. The odds of someone having deformities as a result of radiation, however? Those weren't just better, those were scientifically proven odds. That was beyond possible into the realm of highly plausible, and as scientists, the Fentons could be found legally responsible-

As scientists, they knew and they'd kept the Ghost Portal active, leaking deadly ectoradiation into a town that was swiftly becoming a city, full of young families. One accident a la Chernobyl and the effects would be devastating on the community. Rahayu cranked his music down, leaving him with the silence of the night as he tried to figure out what to do. Did he owe it to Sam to sit on the story? It was going to hit the papers regardless given her family's income. Was it ethical not to tell the town, when another baby could be born with Alan or Lily's deformities without warning? What if Sam's family put up the money to keep the radiation angle of the story out of the news? Sam wasn't prone to covering up the truth, but she'd do it to keep her parents and her in-laws from being interrogated by the news – and Rahayu _understood_ that, he did. He would set his own office on fire if it meant he could keep his family safe. If he were in her shoes, he'd bury the story, too.

"Seti?" his wife asked, opening the door to his office to smile sleepily at him. "It's getting late. Maybe you could wrap it up and try sleeping at night? I hear it's all the rage."

He smiled reflexively at her, getting up to pull her into a loving embrace. Her baby bump was pronounced enough he could feel the shape through her nightgown. And in that moment, Setiawan Rahayu made his decision. "I can't tonight, Val. I have to break a story."

Valerie frowned, touching his face in that sweet way she always did when she was worried. "You don't sound happy about it."

_Sam brought us together. And this is how I'm repaying her. But with our kid on the line…_

"I'm not."

* * *

Danny left Alan and Lilith with Sam in their apartment when he went to see his parents.

This conversation was years coming, and if he could do it all over he'd redo things so he didn't wait this long, but in lieu of time travel, he had to face it down. There was something oddly freeing in knowing that after this, he'd never have to hide another injury, make up another story or try to recall another excuse again. Ghost hunting had made passing college take an additional year, had left him unable to keep down a job fulltime despite how hard he tried. He was exhausted with lying, with the constant upkeep of false narratives and the anxiety of people he knew comparing notes. Fighting ghosts had kept him from being there for his friends and then his children more than once. He couldn't wait to never have to do any of that again.

That didn't make the actual admission any easier. If he'd had more time to think about it, this wasn't how he'd have chosen, ideally, to go about this whole thing. However, he'd had years to go about this different and he hadn't. This was his own fault and, like many things that were his fault, the weight of what he could have done versus what he did weighed heavily on him. There was also that unpleasant stomach-dropping feeling inside him, a fear so deeply intertwined with who he was that he could barely remember a time before it. If he told them, they could either reject him or… something. Despite all the years he'd spent gently guiding them towards the idea that ghosts weren't evil, he knew that the prejudice went deep, further embedded by years of pseudo-science. If this were just about him, he'd have taken off and gone into hiding.

But it wasn't about him, it was about Lilith, Alan, Sam, and ultimately his whole extended family, parents, sister and in-laws. There was no way out other than through.

"Danny!" His father forced a smile, opening the door when he knocked. "Good to see you, Danno. Your mother's just getting finished in the lab."

He blinked, uncertain if he'd heard correctly. "In the lab?"

"Shutting down the Ghost Portal – we – I mean, she thought – we – well." He cleared his throat, blinking back some other, less cheerful expression as best he could. "It can't leak radiation if it isn't operating."

"Dad, listen to me," the younger man said, with enough gravity in his voice that his father's false cheer was replaced with focus instantly. "I need to talk to you and Mom, immediately. It's about the Portal, and it's important."

Jack took a deep breath, as if about to tell Danny this wasn't the time, then seemed to think better of it. "Alright. But be gentle with her, son. Your mother – your mother can't take another heartbreak."

There was a surreal feel to the moments that followed. Knowing this was the last time that he was going to be in this house as solely Danny Fenton and not Danny, half-ghost-and-half-human, knowing that after today he would never stand here and lie to his parents again, he tried to take everything in. The house was largely unchanged, save for pictures of Danny and Sam's wedding and the twins, pictures of Jazz and Danny's graduations from high school and then college, and a picture of Jazz and her boyfriend Isidor in front of their apartment with their dog, Yoyo. A few knickknacks Danny had gotten his mother over the years whenever she periodically mentioned wanting to redecorate the house sat on the coffee table in the living room. Her favorite, a candle shaped like a chicken that had made her laugh in confusion when he gave it to her for Christmas, was still prominently on display, its' eyes staring blankly ahead. The sight of the stupid thing would have normally made him smile at all the fond memories he had of his parents in this house. All he could feel now, instead, was a raw, nervous energy that made him want to claw his own skin off just to get past this moment or avoid it somehow. It was a kind of nervousness he hadn't felt since he was a teenager but, he reflected, he hadn't felt this young or in over his head since then, either.

When his mother came into the living room, it was obvious she hadn't gotten any sleep and that she'd been crying. Jack took her hand in his before tugging her to sit down on the couch next to him. With his arms around her protectively, Maddie seemed a little more ready to face Danny. The guilt was weighing on her and turning her vivid violet eyes a dull purple-grey that was painful to see. Danny steeled his nerves. _I hate doing this, but I won't let other people keep torturing themselves over this. I'm sorry, Mom, Dad. I should have said something earlier._

"I don't have a way to start this conversation prepared," he started, solemnly. "I don't know how to phrase this or what the science of it is. Tucker's done his own research into that, which I'll totally give you guys to go over later. I know you know the science, too, that ghosts overshadowing someone else can't make them take on the appearance of a ghost, so I want you to keep that in mind. I want you to think of every time since I was fourteen that I've been caught lying to you or acted weird. And more than anything, I want you to know I'm still your son, I'm still Sam's husband, and I'm still Lilith and Alan's father. This doesn't change who I am or who I love and fight to protect."

And then he focused and the familiar rings of white light appeared around him as he transformed before he could lose his nerve.

Jack's face seemed frozen, caught inbetween expressions. Maddie's grip on her husband's hand tightened, but otherwise, she didn't move. Danny brushed an errant strand of hair out of his eyes and smiled weakly at them. They didn't smile back, which he supposed was understandable, all things considered. He paused mid-thought, hand still in his hair, and tugged a white strand down to squint at. "Huh. I guess this explains Lilith's hair to you guys now, doesn't it? Hers is thicker, though." He was babbling. He knew he was babbling, and he couldn't stop regardless, couldn't let that awkward silence keep stretching on, so he continued, "I know this is a lot to take in, but the, um, I think Sam would call it the salient point – the salient point is that _this_ is the thing that caused the kids' problems, not you. Neither of you even thought this was possible. So this isn't on you, okay?"

Maddie stood up, legs shaking slightly, and took a step towards him. Danny forced himself not to turn away or back up. This was his mom. He couldn't act afraid of her when she was already at such a low point emotionally; he could never hurt her, not for anything in the world. Her eyes were wet with unshed tears as she reached out to touch his hair, clearly making the connection in her head between his hair and his daughter's. For a moment she gazed at him without any visible reaction or emotion. And then, like a dam breaking, tears leaked down her cheeks and she yanked him into a tight hug, holding on with enough strength to make even a half-ghost gasp for air. In a flash of motion most wouldn't have thought possible for someone so bulky, Jack got up from the couch and wrapped his arms around them both. The warmth from the two humans seeped into Danny, taking the ghostly chill out of his body, and he hugged them back in turn.

"We tried to _kill you_ ," his mother managed, voice wavering, dripping with guilt. "We tried to kill you when you were trying to save everyone. Danny, how can you ever forgive us?"

"I already have." He looked at her, then at his father, who struggled to meet his eyes. "All you ever tried to do was protect people. I was frustrated with you sometimes, worried a _lot_ of the time, but I never hated you or anything. Why do you think I turned into a superhero? It's because you two taught me to protect people who can't protect themselves."

His father sniffled, and took a deep breath. "Danny, I… I have a lot of questions I want to ask, someday, when we're not in a crisis. But I want you to know I'm proud of you, and that I'm sorry it took us so long to change our minds about Phantom's true nature. It shouldn't have taken Jazz writing her dissertation about how scientists manifest confirmation bias in the field to get us to give you a chance."

Danny grinned briefly. "Yeah, but her writing an entire paper with citations to show you how wrong you were _was_ kind of funny." More seriously, he added, "It's in the past, guys. You learned to give Phantom a chance, and you _know_ me, so as far as I'm concerned, you don't have to apologize for anything except for blaming yourselves for the kids' conditions. This is what happens when someone like me has children, and I didn't know that, and neither did you."

"I built the portal-" his mother started, only for her son to cut her off. He loved her, but he couldn't take one more round of 'this is my fault and here's why' from someone he loved.

"Sam made me go into the portal. I chose to let them come see it. Jazz chose not to keep it on lockdown. Look, this can be everyone's fault if you try hard enough to make it theirs. Blame isn't going to change the past. We need to figure out what our legal defense is going to be so nobody ends up in prison," Danny pointed out firmly, pushing away from them so he could breathe and transforming back into his human form. "I talked to Vlad to get us lawyered up, but that's really only step one." He glanced between them, thinking. "Is there _any_ chance of the Mansons dropping the case?"

His parents shared a hopeless, unconvinced look, and his mother had just opened her mouth to reply when she caught sight of someone through the window. Mutely, she jerked her head towards the outside, and Danny's heart sank when he followed her gaze.

A news van was parked outside, and it was not alone.

* * *

Alan blinked away, his sleep having been disrupted by… _something_ , he was too young to put a word to what.

It wasn't that Lilith had cried or woken up. He was getting better about sleeping through his sister's noises, perhaps because that was the only way to share a room with her and not go crazy before they hit two years of age. For several foggy moments, his toddler brain struggled to identify what was wrong. The lights were out, keeping his pale, pigment deficient eyes from having to try to squint against the brightness of the world, and like many ghosts and their descendents, he actually saw better in the dark. He could make out the distinct outlines of the cribs, the crack of light where the doorframe was, the bulky plastic of the baby monitor, and the soft curves of his sister's body in the other crib. Her white hair stood out in even the small fragments of light their bedroom in their parent's apartment got, catching and reflecting it, giving her a faint, ghostly glow.

His pale purple-grey eyes squinted at her form. Something was wrong. She was swathed in blankets as always, so it took him a few seconds to comprehend what the problem was. When it hit him, some kind of primal fear that went deeper than his conscious ability to reason hit him, and he screamed and screamed until his throat was raw, panic crashing over him in waves.

Lilith wasn't breathing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I apologize for the schedule slip. There were reasons behind it, but I'm still sorry regardless and I'll endeavor to do better in the future. Thank you to everyone for your patience.
> 
> @ the Holocaust denier who tried spamming the review section on ff.net for this story, I will delete your reviews on here, too. Sam is Jewish, this is canon, end of story, live long and die mad about it.

When Jeremy Manson was preparing for his bar mitzvah, his father had sat him to talk to him about being an adult.

Part of being an adult was accepting that sometimes the world was going to be awful. "Not just 'unfair' or 'cruel'," his father had said, voice calm and level in a way that was as charming as it could be disconcerting. "Sometimes, life is going to simply become so unbearable that you're going to curse God for His inaction, His callousness, and for ever making the mistake of giving human beings free will. And I want you to know that's alright, because we're Jewish, and the very name Israel means 'to wrestle with God'. Part of being Jewish is being allowed to question, to hurt, and to ask 'why'. The only thing you need to keep in mind," he continued, his dark, near-burgundy purple eyes laser-focused, "Is that we are not meant to go through such things alone. Seek someone out when you're hurting and, while I can't promise you anything will make more sense, I swear it _will_ be easier to endure."

Jeremy hadn't known what to say at the time. His father was a Holocaust survivor, a man who'd gone white-haired by the time he was twenty and immigrated to America, someone whose surname was a willing fabrication chosen in order to assimilate into the United States. Elijah Manson had a lot of reasons to treat God like an asshole friend he couldn't quite bring himself to eject out of his life. By contrast, Jeremy had grown up with his every need and desire covered, in a loving home with parents who doted on him, and he'd lived a pretty charmed life throughout college as he pursued a degree in business and met a charming young woman he'd spent three years pretending not to be in love with before he asked her out. They'd had a fairytale wedding, purchased a home in a good neighborhood in a town with a rising economy, and managed to go through Amity Park's most active ghost years without anyone in their family coming to harm. He had a beautiful, smart, kind, activist-and-reporter of a daughter who wanted to help the world and who fell in love with her own best friend much like he had, though thankfully they hadn't taken as long to realize it. He couldn't envision hating God in that back-and-forth, love-and-hate, give and take way his father assured him was a standard Jewish experience.

Then the twins had been born and he had understood, if not all of his father's feelings, then part of them. He had been shaken by them, by their tiny malformed bodies and the stillness they maintained in sleep, almost like death. From the moment he saw them, he understood that his relationship with the world, with morality, with the concept of disabled people and with God had all changed forever. His priorities rearranged themselves that first night after their birth as he and Pamela stood watch over the twins after forcing an exhausted Danny to go home. The part of him that was more like his mother told him not to get angry at everything; the Sephardic Jewish thing to do was rejoice that the twins were alive at all. But he couldn't pull that sort of joy out of himself, couldn't escape the ugly, uncomfortable, foreign fury in his veins that directed itself directly at the concept of a loving God who let this happen. Jeremy hadn't had gray hairs prior to their birth. By the time things progressed to Pamela's ill-conceived lawsuit, he had two white streaks running through his hair.

"Do the right thing because it's the right thing," his father had advised him before going to college. "Not because God says so or I say so or the law says so, do it because you know it's right – and other than that, do whatever it is you want in life."

What was right? He had more than one very long, heartfelt conversation with his rabbi on the matter. Jeremy hadn't been as good of a father to Sam as he could have been, hadn't been understanding in ways she needed until mid-college. He had made many, many mistakes. Sometimes, he was aware, he'd been more preoccupied with work than with what his daughter needed in life. And while he couldn't redo those years, he _could_ try to be there for Lilith and Alan when they needed him and when their parents needed him. That was what he wanted to do. That was what felt right.

That was the only thing that mattered as he drove like a madman, spiriting Sam and the twins and Tucker, who was trying in vain to soothe a panicking Alan, to the hospital at a speed that made ambulances look like snails. He was a blue of motion, the car miraculously weaving through traffic and over sidewalks to make it in time, his own breath painful in his nose. The very act of breathing seemed wrong when Lilith was only barely doing so, was still and ragdoll in her mother's arms, a sickly white-skinned girl whose brother kept trying to push his way out of Tucker's arms to reach for her. She'd started breathing again after Sam did CPR on her, but her breathing was still sluggish, slow, and they couldn't get her to wake up. Jeremy forced himself to keep his eyes on the road and didn't so much as let himself shake as he slammed into a parking spot reserved for ambulances in front of the Emergency Room entrance doors. Sam barely waited for the car to stop before scrambling out, her form a streak of black hair and black clothing as she rushed into the hospital.

"No," Alan said, uncomprehending, pale purple eyes like foggy glass more than the amethyst of his mother. Tucker rubbed his back and the baby boy buried his face in the young black man's shoulder, making a soft, angry sound somewhere between a grunt and a scream. "No, no no! Lil!"

Jeremy parked them in an actual parking spot, biting his lower lip just as his daughter did when she was agitated. He wasn't angry with the Fentons, not even now, not even remembering the doctors telling them that the odds of both twins surviving to adulthood were somewhere between twelve and thirty percent likely given their health. He knew that they would sooner shoot themselves through the head than endanger a child, any child, let alone ones they were related to. Pamela's anger was being directed at the wrong people because that was better than feeling powerless. He felt powerless, too, powerless and alone and incredibly unequipped to deal with any of this in a way he hadn't felt since he was a child.

Tucker shushed Alan, carrying him with one arm and opening the door with the other. Jeremy couldn't help but be touched by how much of his time he was willing to sacrifice to be here for them. He barely knew Jeremy, but he was giving him the same it's-okay-really smile he gave his friends most of the time. "I'm glad I came over this morning to check on the kids. Come on, Mr. Manson. We gotta go back Sam up."

_God, if you're out there, tell my father I understand perfectly. Life is awful and I hate it and frankly, God, I'm not terribly fond of You, either. But at least I've got somebody to go through this with, even if it's the last person I expected.  
_

"Yeah, sorry Tucker. Spaced out for a second, there."

* * *

Adalet Oktem was supposed to be having a day off. Normally, that meant unwinding with a horror game or hungrily devouring another sci-fi novel or, more often than not these days, curling up with Tucker and Netflix to block out the world.

Today, she'd started it off with a text from Tucker saying Lilith was in the hospital, turned on the TV news while she threw on her clothes (some part of her that just _knew_ things told her that today wasn't going to be a day where she could afford to lay around in her pajamas) and within ten minutes saw the stunned Fentons yanking down the blinds on their windows and retreating as reporters tried to get them to come out and answer questions. She swore loudly in Turkish, threw her hair into a quick, tight bun she could tuck under her hijab, grabbed a granola bar in lieu of breakfast and made a beeline for her motorcycle. Technically, she was not a lawyer. Legally, so long as she didn't say she was, she could do everything in her power to persuade the press that she was and that they needed to back off.

Being romantically involved with Tucker was weird. On the one hand, it was a perfectly loving relationship. Not normal, maybe, given how much of their time was devoted to nerdly pursuits, but otherwise not terribly different from any other relationship she'd been in. On the other hand, she'd immediately become good friends with his best friends because the trio still hung out so regularly they were practically siblings. Danny and Sam were good people, two dorky, well meaning, kind friends who'd been over the moon Tucker was finally in a lasting relationship. To date Tucker was to instantly have two new friends and be offered anti-ghost tech by the Fentons, like kooky grandparents. It was like having a second family. While she didn't necessarily know everyone involved well – really, she wasn't even sure any of them wanted her around outside of group outings – she knew that if she needed something, Danny and Sam would be there for her. They'd always been there for Tucker. On some level, maybe she owed them a favor.

On another, she simply enjoyed rolling up, parking, and hefting a boombox above her head to blast the Turkish version of _Let It Go_ at a deafening volume at a pack of unsuspecting reporters.

_Damnit, Tucker must have swapped the CDs_ , she lamented to herself. _Van Halen would have worked so much better for this._ Her musical taste ran a lot heavier and louder than her boyfriend's. Still, the volume made asking questions to the Fentons an entirely lost cause, and she held up her work badge declaring her place of work and thus, were she theoretically a lawyer, her legal right to consult with, theoretically, her clients. The press had to part around her and let her through. Nobody wanted to be caught on camera being the ones who refused to let people have access to their lawyers, especially when a crying Maddie opened the door as Danny reached for her. Denying a sobbing mother anything seldom played well to the cameras, so the incredibly irritated reporters grit their teeth as the dubbed Disney song hammered at their eardrums and Adalet tried her best not to grin. _Well, this may be an unorthodox way to get in, but I guess you can't argue with results._

Snapping the music off once she was inside, she turned to Danny. "It's alright," she told him, despite not actually knowing if that was true at all. "I'm close enough to a lawyer that they won't keep trying to ask for interviews if I'm on the property."

He glanced at his parents. "Can you get them to leave? My folks don't need this right now."

"Legally, no, so long as they stay off the property line after knocking initially. However, this will at least slow down that knocking long enough we can get a game plan together." She set the boombox down and took a breath. "Alright, so, um. Did you get Tucker's text?"

"What text-" he froze as he took out his phone and caught sight of what she was talking about. "Oh, _shit_."

"Lilith is fine," she lied, not knowing if that was, strictly speaking, true, but needing to keep Mrs. Fenton from collapsing where she stood with her husband's arms around her for support. "She's stable and Sam's with her, it's okay. What we need to worry about is the press finding out and covering this. They're not taking the presumed radiation and contamination well given how many of them have family here, so we can probably keep them over here and away from the hospital so long as we promise them a prepared statement and don't indicate the children's locations. Here, eat this before you faint."

Danny blinked as she handed him a granola bar. "Thanks. Uh, I think the legal team Vlad – as in the mayor, he's my mom's friend – the legal team he's gotten together will be over in like, half an hour? Can you stay until then?"

"Yes," Adalet declared with more authority than she felt. "Besides, I can't act as an legal advisor, but I do have relevant information that might help the legal team, as weird as that sounds. You know that ghost case," she continued, looking over at Danny's parents, "the one from Eritrea, with that uptick in ghost activity like in Amity Park? I looked into it for Sam last night after she asked if there was legal precedent for suing someone over ghost radiation."

Jack sounded hopeful for the first time in weeks. "And? What did you find?"

"To boil down a night's worth of research into a sentence? There was no connection found between a spike in ghosts and birth defects – the legal team did a DNA test and found that the effected child in that case had been fathered by a ghost, as absurd as that sounds." She held up a hand as Danny paled. "I'm not suggesting Sam cheated on you with a ghost, Danny, hard as it is for any of us not to swoon at the feet of the Box Ghost. What I'm saying is that, if you can prove there's some other cause for the twins' problems, you've got good legal grounds for a successful defense!"

Silence reigned over the Fenton household. Adalet's soft, storm-cloud grey eyes moved from person to person, confused at their lack of reaction. Danny had gone so still he could have been a statue, eyes boring into hers as if searching for a trick or a lie. Jack's expression wasn't much better. Adalet abrupt realized how much of a stretch this sounded like to anyone who wasn't in the know. And true, the concept of why the case had been dismissed violated a lot of known science; it was still admissible to court barring some kind of counterargument that could produce proof it absolutely _was_ the result of ectoplasmic radiation, which didn't exist yet. Dealing with a relatively new field of science meant all of this was insane, beyond her understanding and new, but she steeled her nerves and drew herself up to full height to pitch the idea to the Fentons with the kind of sincerity and passion that came from wanting to protect them from the legal consequences of losing the case.

"Look, I _know_ it's not a rock-solid base for a legal case given that Eritrea's government hasn't released a lot of information on the case and that utilizing foreign precedent in court is going to take getting a judge's approval, but I did a draft of an appeal last night on my laptop and I know a couple of really decent judges I think might give you a fair deal and let you utilize this! It could work, and – I know families are never the same after fights like this, and you and the Mansons may never get along, but I… I just…" she trailed off, feeling incredibly naïve as their lack of enthusiasm got to her. "…I know it's going to take a fight to get this to work, but I thought it might help. It's something, right?"

Danny forced himself to speak, unable to meet her eyes. "Adalet, what… what happened to the baby? I mean, it was alive long enough for there to be a court case, and a DNA test and all that, so how long…?"

She pulled the case details out of the back of her mind. "She died. Complications from chronic respiratory infections, which – which is tragic, but Danny, that baby had a non-human dad, that whole thing was totally different. Lilith's going to be fine, okay? …okay?"

Danny buried his face into his palm, taking several deep breaths. "What would your legal advice be, theoretically, I mean – legally, in the United States, would it be the ghost parent's fault their children were disabled?"

"I think," Adalet said carefully, suspicion dawning in her mind on delay, "That you'd better tell me more details in this 'theoretical' before I answer that."

* * *

Sam would have hit Rahayu hard if he'd let her, but at six foot five, he was able to grab her hand and yank her arm upward with enough force to give her pause.

He'd never needed to fight her before, not in this context. Sam was an exasperating reporter to work with in the field in other senses – usually in that her enthusiasm was grating and she had no concept of doing things in moderation – and prior to him alerting the media about the Fentons, she'd only ever touched him to steal his coffee. Now, the fury in her eyes was palpable, the bags under her eyes letting him know exactly how little sleep she was running on, and all things considered, he _did_ feel for her. They'd felt bad for plenty of people they'd blown the whistle on. That wasn't new. Part of being a journalist who wasn't paid off by the establishment media was learning to shove his sympathy aside periodically to do what he needed to. The years in the field he had on her had jaded him to a lot of things. Sometimes he would sit there, taking in a story, and be aware he _should_ feel something while also not feeling anything at all. He wished he could tap into that as Sam glowered up at him, hateful and betrayed. Rahayu took a deep breath.

"Look," he began, tired before they'd even started, "Let's not add assault charges into the mix. You can yell at me, you can curse me out, but you're someone's _mother_ , Sam. You can't just smack a guy like you're in high school."

She nodded, and he dropped her hand, appraising her slender form. Any baby weight had been burned off by months of work and worry. Her hair fell to her mid-back, the front strands pulled back into a ponytail to keep them out of her eyes, and someone who didn't know her might miss the little details that showed her exhaustion: the lack of makeup, yesterday's work slacks, no jewelry, Danny's jacket because his was what she'd grabbed as she went out the door. Sam was an immaculate dresser now that she was older, but the last few days were eating away at her ability to keep all these balls in the air. Worriedly, he placed his fingers against her forehead, checking for a fever that he thankfully didn't find. She swatted his hand away, fighting to maintain her anger at him and not think about the reasons he'd done what he did. Sam was reasonable. She knew Rahayu hadn't done this for the hell of it. That knowledge was the only reason she hadn't had him thrown out of the building by hospital security on sight.

"Have you had anything to eat?" he asked, glancing over at Tucker and Mr. Manson, who were watching Lilith in her incubator as she took deep, even breaths. "Come on, let's grab brunch and talk. You've known me long enough to be civil."

"…fine." Sam walked behind him, trailing a safe distance after him. Her body language was hunched, defensive. He tried not to feel guilty that he'd made her feel that way about him.

"How's Lil?"

Her nose crinkled. She hated that nickname on her child. "She's stable, they think. They're going to do some tests. Alan's not happy we won't let him go in there and curl up with her." He nodded; Alan and Lilith had been clingy with each other since their first ultrasounds, after all. That was more or less par for the course when it came to twins. "How's Valerie?"

"Pregnant." He sighed as Sam inhaled sharply. "Hence my breaking the story – I'm sorry, Sam, I really am, but I would murder a man for my wife and I wouldn't so much as hesitate. You know that."

"Well," she muttered dryly, " _That_ makes me feel so much better about you throwing me under the bus. You know, my mom might've dropped the lawsuit if you had just given me some more time to work on her-"

He failed to stifle his snort of laughter. "Your mother has never dropped a grudge in her life, Sam. I can agree I didn't help the situation, but let's not lie to ourselves about your mother's breathtaking lack of chill." He turned to face her, meeting her gaze steadily. "And let's not pretend that if our positions were reversed, you wouldn't throw me under the bus, too, because you would. I know you would. It's one of the things I admire most about you."

She said nothing, nodding her head once to concede the point as they made their way to the hospital cafeteria. Rahayu could tell the smell of food wasn't appealing to her, but he'd made her eat more than once before when they worked together. The trick was to make it seem like it was necessary in order to do something else – to give her a reason besides her own wellbeing to eat, or sleep, or any number of things he'd had to talk her into doing over the years. That same philosophy went into how Valerie approached him, which was going to be a dark echo of a lost dynamic if Sam quit speaking to him over this. He knew that was a possible outcome before he'd broken the story to the press and made the Fentons the center of the town's attention again, he'd known she was going to hate him, and he had gone through with it anyway. Now, even if the Mansons did drop their suit, the town would call for a government or state level investigation, and might call for it regardless. At that point, the truth was going to prevail regardless of what anyone involved in the case wanted or did.

When he'd been getting prepared for his wedding, grumbling the whole way through getting fitted for a tux, Sam had told him doing things right sometimes meant doing things nobody wanted to do. He'd muttered something about wanting to burn the store down. His entire wedding process had been spent jokingly blaming her for ever introducing him to Valerie in the first place. Sam had hauled Rahayu along with herself and Danny for a double date to get both Danny and Rahayu to do something that wasn't work related, and he'd spent a wonderful evening listening to Valerie recount the zanier ghost antics at their school with the kind of annoyed exasperation that made him almost compulsively snark at her just to get her to laugh. That Sam had made their lives better wasn't lost on him. This forcing a conclusion to the case was a jackass thing of him to do.

He could live with that, all things considered, if it kept his family safe. "The people here deserve to know if they should be bracing themselves for radiation-induced genetic mutations, Sam. If this story was breaking anywhere other than Amity, you'd be breaking it and I'd be right there behind you."

"It's not radiation," she said with a surprising level of certainty, given the state of things. "You don't have any idea what you're talking about. No one does." Sam kicked a vending machine, a flash of angry motion that rocked the pitiful device and forced it to deposit chips for her she hadn't even wanted. The sheer conviction with which she said it screamed 'withholding information' to him, and that… well, that was interesting if only for how very un-Sam that was.

"Then you need to tell someone that – someone with a microphone who can back it up, optimally, with some proof or examples. Sam, I'd _love_ it if it turned out my kids were actually safe this whole time, but keeping whatever this actually is, if it's not radiation, to yourself? You're not going to help your case that way."

She whirled on him, eyes glossy with tears. "If it weren't for you I wouldn't have a case to help!"

"No, if it weren't for your _mother_ , you wouldn't have a legal case," he corrected her gently. "Which tells me that whatever proof you have this isn't what it looks like, you're keeping from her, too."

"My mother's an asshole, she doesn't deserve to know." Sam opened her mouth to say more, probably to list off the myriad number of ways in which her mother was unsupportive, obnoxious and overbearing, only to be cut off by a shout from back down the way they'd come.

They bolted back to where Sam's father and Tucker were. That Sam could be so fast despite being both unathletic and a foot shorter than Rahayu spoke to the power of motherhood, and only him shoving the door open for her kept her from kicking it in out of sheer panic. They skidded to a halt in the observation hall of the NICU, locking up at what they saw. On instinct, Rahayu put a stabilizing hand on each of Sam's shoulders, and she leaned back, taking in huge gulps of air like a woman on the verge of a panic attack. Sam's dad, looking dazed, still had a hand outstretched as if trying to stop Alan from moving.

Only, Alan wasn't there. He was floating, bobbing unsteadily, in the air above Lilith's incubator, clearly uncertain if he could land on the clear box or not. His pale face was scrunched up in concentration as he lowered himself to the chair beside it instead, landing with a 'thump' that echoed in the silence.

Rahayu gazed at the twins, a lightbulb belatedly going off. Alan's eyes were a dark, deep green in the air, before he blinked and they were light purple again in the chair, tiny hands on the side of the glass. He curled up against his sister's incubator, a lonely sort of instinctual movement that showed how little he understood about why she was separated from him. As a frazzled, visibly shaken doctor rushed into the room to get Alan out of there before he ruined the sterile environment, Sam leaned back into Rahayu, nearly collapsing, muttering 'no' again and again and a name. Danny.

Danny Phantom could've phased through that. Danny Fenton was the children's father. The implications weren't lost on him, and, glancing at her stone-still father, they weren't lost on Jeremy, either.

"…you're right," her former journalistic partner amended quietly to her, "I didn't understand. But I'm willing to listen, now."


End file.
